30th Anniversary of Banned Books Week

Flash-Mob Read-Out with 30 individuals walking/converging while reading from passages in 30 banned books – one for each year since the inception of Banned Books Week in America.

Judith’s Reading Room is also active in providing books to the men and woman who serve, or have served, in the US Military, ourhonored veterans and active-duty soldiers.

Lafayette College’s Kirby librarian Ana Ramirez Luhrs and Erin D’Amelio ’13, a double major in English and French, organized the event along with a number of related activities protesting the banning of books by schools, bookstores, and libraries across the country. Also part of the week, at Lafayette’s Skillman Library, Alan Gribben, professor of English at Auburn University, presented “The Price of Fighting Censorship: Mark Twain Editions Today”. Professor Bianca Falbo and Professor Andrew Smith held an informal roundtable discussion, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell”, of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

[note color=”#7d92e8″]
Storyteller Eva Grayzel performed using Judith Krug’s quotes on censorship as her inspiration.[/note]

30th Anniversary of Banned Books Week: Judith’s Reading Room will honor Judith F. Krug, founder of Banned Books Week, in whose memory the organization is named. Judith Krug, director of the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom for 40 years before her death in 2009 was a towering champion of free speech and a vigorous opponent of censorship.

The American Library Association (ALA) named Judith’s Reading Room as one of eight recipients of this year’s Krug Fund Grant in support of Banned Books Week. Banned Books Week, took place September 30 to October 6, 2012, celebrates the freedom to access information, while drawing attention to the harms of censorship. 2012 marks the 30th anniversary of Banned Books Week.